Keeper of the Wilds
by Agrippina Pelageya
Summary: When one lives for a thousand years, you inevitably gain one or two bits of wisdom...A character study for my OC. Just read it and tell me what you guys think of her!


**Hello all! Welp, to make this brief, I'm preparing a new story for the RotG fandom, and this is a little character study concerning my OC, Nia, so I can get some feedback on what you guys think of her. (FYI: She's not as somber as this piece makes her seem; you'll see more of her sass and bite once I get the real story posted - it'll be called ****_Fire & Ice and Everything Nice_****)**

**Without further ado, enjoy!**

****...:oOo:...

When one lives for a thousand years, you inevitably gain one or two bits of wisdom somewhere along the way.

Verañia Bloom (formerly Pitchiner) didn't know precisely when she had become wise. Maybe it was harassing monks at that Tibetan monastery or lying in the snowdrifts of the Taiga, bleeding to death, staring up at the swirl of stars and galaxies from whence she came. (But then, maybe near-death experiences stopped counting after the fifty-seventh time in three months.)

Oh, there went her thoughts again, she thought drowsily as the icy waves lapped at her prone form. She was on the west coast of Scotland. Maybe. Oh, she really shouldn't have messed with that wendigo. But she'd wanted to see if they could finally drive out the Brits - apparently that particular 'Empire' had the nasty habit of upsetting those they conquered. Classic mistake; Rome had gotten cocky, too. Heh. Look where that had gotten them.

_Where was I?_ She pondered as she looked at the bow of amber and jewels clasped loosely in her hand. Oh yes, the acquisition of wisdom.

Maybe it had been during her time as a mortal. When her family was practically royalty. When she had a family at all. Maybe it had snuck itself into her young mind when her father left to defeat the darkness of the galaxies in defense of the great Lunanoffs. She'd had a flash of it when he came back, leading the hoards of darkness instead of battling them, his mind twisted and possessed, his memories of her wiped. Or, perhaps, just locked away.

She remembered her last thought when he had set the Fearlings on her. An old saying that her mother had once mentioned in passing.

_"Even the brightest stars are destined to turn as dark as the Void himself."_

She wasn't quite sure how she had been saved. At first there had been only darkness. No hot. No cold. No up or down. There was the feeling of drifting, as insubstantial as smoke. She wondered if this was Purgatory, but surely terrorizing nannies with frogs and burning her corsets weren't sins, right? At that moment, a voice, young but full of authority, had whispered in her mind - her new name and title. She had opened her eyes, finally anchoring herself to her body, and the first thing she saw was the moon.

Her appearance had changed; that her formerly porcelain-pale hands had turned a sultry russet said as much, though she didn't notice her hair and eyes until later. A strange giddiness - like she had enough energy to sprint for miles without stopping - tingled in her limbs and made her muscles twitch. Her wounds had all miraculously healed. A ways away, stabbing the ground and standing fluid and winking with bronze filigree and jewels, was a bow. The bow. The one she had shot as one last ditch effort to stop the siege against her household - to save her brother. When she took it in her hand as she stood amongst the smoldering ruins of her family manor, it seemed to come alive, thrumming placidly but strongly in her palm, like a jungle cat.

But the rightness of the weapon in her hands had been little balm to her storm-tossed soul.

It had been a difficult transition. From mortal to spirit. From heiress to urchin. From beloved daughter of the greatest General of the Golden Age to the Keeper of the Wilds, agent of the Earth herself. Child of starlight and wildfire. The South Winds were her ally, the Moon her patron.

How she'd fought. Oh, she'd fought this new life tooth and claw. She'd thrown the faithful bow of amber and bronze off cliffs and mountains and stomped away, ignoring the plaintive stars and imploring Winds.

_Oh little Huntress, starchild, fire girl! Oh please, please, just believe - believe that all will be well! Such great plans for you, such greatness and triumph in store!_

"How will all be well?!" She had demanded of the firmament, so unreachable above her, arrogant and commanding in her insolence and bone-breaking sorrow. "I have been murdered, back-stabbed, and abandoned! And you DARE say all will be well?! I will be well when my mother lives, when my father returns and my body is _not walked through like a wretched ghoul!_"

And then the bow would return, as though by magic. No - she had not a doubt that it was magic. Always, always it would return, like a hound to its master.

Decades passed. Then centuries. It got easier. She stopped fighting the call of the wilds and her urge to protect them. She became strong and powerful as she discovered her abilities and her true role in the world. She lived as no one had lived before. She had seen life rise and fall in all manner of ways, the cycle as repetitive and unstoppable as the rise and fall of the ever-watchful moon, and just as spectacular. She had seen the most gruesome of atrocities. The most vicious battles. The most appalling crimes and infuriating injustices. She had seen kings and their empires rise and fall like the ocean waves. She had peered into the very darkest abysses of human nature and lived to tell the tale.

But she had also seen beauty. Beauty so simple but so perfect that not even the purest starsong could compare. Beauty both strong and fragile, subtle and majestic. She saw it everywhere, in anything and anyone. In the smiles shared between a mother and her child, in the blossoming of the first roses of spring, and the birdsong of the savannah. It was what made this world so worth defending. For while she looked Death in the eye more times than she could count and been deceived by love so cruelly that her heart had been mangled and maimed beyond repair, she still knew it.

She held no love for love. It had let her down so horribly in every possible way that she shunned it, even in her subconscious. Her beauty and talent were envied and coveted by many; but her heart remained ensconced in a fortress of distrust. Enslaved by the deep sadness and deception that been planted in its depths. Now her loveliness (of which she was quite aware, thank you very much) was used as it had been used against her. As a decoy; a mirrored shield that showed only what others wanted to see before her coldness struck and left them pining for her. Yes, she'd broken hearts and left wishes hanging. But never so cruelly as it had been done to her.

But even through her celibacy, she loved life with every ember of bright fire that burned within her. It was that fortress of faith and belief that birthed hope.

Hope that there was hope left for this world and all the others out there with their exquisite peoples and beautiful, tragic histories.

Hope that her father, trapped within himself, would fight back and break free of the Darkness.

Hope for hope itself, quite simply. Like Aster - oh, funny, sweet, wise Aster; older than the planet itself and barely an adolescent in his people's eyes - her dear, dear friend had once said, 'Hope only dies with our bodies, and even then, lives on with our spirits.' It was a wisdom she had seen proven time and time again.

"Oh...I get it now..." She murmured in her soft voice of lion purrs and dove coos. Her lips lifted into an accomplished smile as rain washed softly over her, seeming to wash away the pain of her wounds, as well as the pondering of her mind.

Wisdom was not something that manifested in a single moment.

It was something that grew forever with the passing of years and days and millennia. Even with the smallest of breaths, it grew.

Nia smiled and got to her feet, as she always did and would continue to do, and called the South Wind - her faithful friend.

"I think I should visit Aster. I could go for some chocolate, don't you think?" She hummed, her luminescent eyes lighting up in satisfaction. She'd answered her own question and the Scots had given those British a right good ass-kicking. Never let it be said that Nia didn't know how to place a bet. She'd have to visit Solstice soon to cash in.

And so the Huntress rode on. Eternal, unstoppable. Neverending in her learning and unquenchable in her upholding of life.

The New Golden Age would come in due time. The Moon had told her so. After all, she had forever; she'd fight alongside her father yet.

But for now, she had a world to enjoy.


End file.
